Chương 97: Chapter 78 - Alyssa Final

Alyssa POV Darkness. We'd been fighting in darkness for what felt like hours, for all that it'd been only minutes. The conjured shadows and funhouse warping of a killer's sick mind had sequestered us into what I'd thought of as an otherworldly nightmare. It was an awful thing, to be proven wrong so thoroughly, and so quickly. For while Scythe had used the PSS and the connection it formed with his Zoroark to create a realm of darkness and insanity, he'd failed to separate us from the real world.

Outside his wall of shadows stood solid ground, a darkening sky, and the city I'd grown up in. I'd remained certain of those facts, for all the length of that long and short battle within the haze. No illusion could smother the certainty with which I knew that truth. For all we were facing a killer, and a dangerous one at that, his capabilities were not beyond my understanding, fearsome though they were.

And despite its horror, that fight for our lives in those shifting shadows seemed at this moment already like a fond recollection, compared to the dripping madness with which we were now confronted. Techne was gone. The city, full of millions of breathing, burning souls was gone. Swallowed, by an all-encompassing dome of shadows. It surrounded us, a massive enclosure, fit to cover an entire stadium-pitch. A void, from which nothing emerged, and no sense of a beyond could be had.

Scythe's darkness had been swirling shadows and uncertain shapes. Scattered figments giving scarce hints of reality beneath a textured untruth. This was deeper. Something more. Something real. I had no doubts that were I to wander into the wall of black, I'd be lost for an eternity and an age, and I'd never find my way out. It was insanity. A pervasive wrongness so profound, I almost wished to throw myself into the shadows, and find some solace in never having to perceive again.

And what lay within the confines of that unnatural barrier was maybe worse. Spires of dripping ivory erupted from the salt-encrusted ground. Bleached, white bones, stained with running rivulets of what looked superficially like blood, for all it lacked the smell. And something else.

Shards of orange crystal, jutting out from the unnatural growths, pulsing faintly with some faint light and intermittently illuminating moaning faces, caught in relief or as a scattered impressions, visible momentarily in the glimmering ivory as the light swelled, and gone the next as the darkness grew once more. Moaning, I said of the faces, because we could hear their voices.

The groans and echoes of uncertain specters, recorded in some foul way in this otherworldly madhouse, rang out across the tortured landscape, interspersed with screams and howls, torn from throats seeming both human, and otherwise. Mr. Gima and I stood a few meters apart, the distance between us somehow shrunk as we made the transition, for all that this space seemed greater than the dome that'd swallowed us.

Alister and Ink accompanied their trainer, both standing protectively in front of the suited man, staring down the only other occupants of this well of darkness. Not Scythe. The killer's body hadn't made the transition. There was something the man's still-cooling corpse lacked, some fundamental quality or element, for want of which it could not arrive here. Wherever here was. No, instead, we found ourselves confronted by his Zoroark, and by a hooded figure, standing just behind her.

Both were upright but slumped, temporarily unmoving, except for several lengths of crystal, orange shards of glittering light, slowly expanding across their forms. The Shadow Pokémon, for they could be nothing else, stood eerily still, bereft of movement, except for their new, crystalline growths. The orange spires grew slowly but surely, visibly lengthening into points and spires as energy, thick with malice and hate, whirled around the pair. The reprieve was welcome, and in the interim, we moved closer to Mr.

Gima and his two remaining partners.

"Fe talked about this," I spoke to him as we approached.

"She said when she fought the Shadow Pokémon under the stadium, they created some sort of otherworldly space."

"Well did she say how to get out?" the Dark-specialist asked without looking over, his eyes fixed on our two opponents.

"Because I'm not going to lie, I'm down a lot of Poképower, and if these Shadow Pokémon are as much stronger than usual as Fe has been saying, then Mayal alone would be enough to shred us, let alone her friend over there."

"Mayal?" I asked, though I two kept my gaze fixed on the unmoving shades ahead of us.

"The Zoroark. She's the one we've been looking for. Ink's sister." I heard an intake of breath, like he was going to say more, but whatever was going to come next, the Unovan man strangled in favor of a sigh.

"Look, I'll try to buy us time. You, get to the edge of this place, and look for a way out, I guess."

"I don't think there is one," I told him grimly.

"Well better to try and look then lay down and die!" Mr. Gima shouted, finally incensed enough to turn to face me.

"So get your ass out of he–" his tirade trailed off, as his flashing eyes found the gleaming, prismatic shard I held close to my chest.

"What– what the hell is that?" he asked, likely able to see the energy coming off the little piece of crystal, if I knew anything about how the man expressed his syn.

"A gift from a friend," I told our mentor. The fractured synergy stone glittered in my hand, and while he might be able to see the energy coming from it, I could feel it, running like electricity thrumming through a wire. A live outlet, from which erupted sparks and flashes. A Familiar energy. A power I knew, intimately, likely better than my own internal reservoir of syn. Pikachu. My partner. My other half. Her strength. Her energy.

It was present in the stone, connected as it was to its opposite, clutched in her unwavering paws. It wasn't as clear as when I used an AR device, and it lacked the thrum of power I was used to getting from the presence of a great synergy stone, but the link was unmistakeable. We were two, but with a bit of focus, a bit of effort, we could be one. And as one, we could fight.

"It's your turn to cover us. Fe said if we destroy the stones, corrupting the Shadow Pokémon, the space will collapse. Just keep my body safe and give us what support you can."

"Kid– Alyssa. You need to listen to reason. Those Pokémon are going to be strong, maybe stronger than my own partners, and dangerous. They'll only go for the kill."

"You know, I just realized something." I took a deep breath, and closed my fist around the shard I clutched, even as Pikachu did the same with hers.

"You've come to a few of my battles now, but you've never seen us going all out." Two fists clenched around two matching shards, and one soul conjoined faced the darkness. Together. Light erupted around us, pushing back the grasping shadows, as a corona of electricity encircling our twin forms. Sparks scattered off of us in waves, eroding the darkness like the ocean lapping against the sand.

"We're going in. Get ready."

"Wai–" but we didn't. And with a flash, we were off. - We'd come a long way since that first, faltering Burst Declare made against Killian and his Excadrill. Half-a-year ago, just that first step had caused the trainer to collapse from strain. Today, we knew we could keep this going for nearly half-a-minute in optimal conditions. That didn't give us a lot of time to win this fight. But in a Ferrum Battle, thirty-seconds could be a lifetime.

The partner vanished, their form replaced by light as they moved like electricity itself, crossing the distance to our targets in a bare instant. Our Quick Attack would put some Extreme Speeds to shame, and it still wasn't enough. A crimson claw swept up, deflecting our strike. Glowing orange eyes met ours for one singular moment, rage and pain and hate and hunger pierced our being, and everything after that was beyond the realm of conscious thought.

Something the trainer had observed: non-Ferrum battles seemed to involve a lot of thinking. Plans and tricks and traps and strategies were important. Beyond important. Without tactics, you wouldn't be able to win, unless you held a truly oppressive advantage in power. It was interesting, in its own way, but they were. So. Damn. Slow! The air itself was screaming as we tore into Mayal. The Shadow Pokémon was fast, and strong, but not so far beyond her baseline as to be unrecognizable.

The same could not be said of the partner in this moment. We were blazing like the sun, charged with enough power to light the city for an age. Things like 'moves' and 'tactics' were a distant memory. Right now, there was only action. Two jabs, with the right paw, duck under a sweeping claw, charge with electricity and ram our skull into Mayal's stomach. Grab hold and let off an outpouring of power that forced the Dark-type to sink into the nearby shadows.

Everything was dark, but the field of electricity surrounding us was oh-so-sensitive. A grasping claw erupted from the ground mere inches from us, but we leapt like a trap on a hair trigger, sending a bolt of lightning below us that staggered the emerging Zoroark. Three seconds. A small application of our very limited psychic-power wrenched our momentum unnaturally, hurtling us towards the ground. We flipped forwards, bringing our tail to bear, the appendage aglow with power.

It swiped forwards, and though Mayal tried to dodge out of the way, we managed to strike our true target, one of the elongated shards of shadow synergy stone sticking out of her shoulder. The offending crystal shattered apart as our iron-infused tail sheared through it, sending glittering pieces of solidified malice scattering across the unnatural ground. Five Seconds. Mayal whirled, a beam of darkness pouring from her mouth before she'd even properly aimed at us.

The attack tore through the surrounding spires, and we dove to the side, skidding for a half-second on the bone-bleached salt. We dug our tail in for traction, and as soon as we were still, we tore forwards. Lightning enshrouded our form, and though we plowed into the beam of energy seeking us, we tore through it, crashing into Mayal's open maw and sending her sprawling. Seven seconds.

We blew past her into the air, and loosed another bolt of blazing light, but this one never hit its intended target, intercepted instead by a steel-clad paw. The second, slumped figure had awakened, and thrown free the cloak concealing their form, revealing for the first time our other foe. The sight was so unexpected, it almost shocked one into two once more. Neither partner nor trainer had seen many Lucario, but they were well-known as pillars of virtue.

Paragons whose behavior from which the very concepts of right and justice could be derived. That reputation, well-earned and hard-fought, made the visage confronting us all the more striking. And all the more horrifying. The shadow Lucario's jaws were pulled back in a snarling rictus, canines gleaming in the light scattering off the partner's luminous form. His fur was covered in crimson stains, seemingly on purpose, and his syn-sensors were bulging, the organs clearly overstrained.

The two spikes emerging from his hands had been sharpened to fine, knife-like points, and the one on his chest was coated in layers of orange crystal, the growth not-at-all commiserate with what had afflicted Mayal. And more than any of that, more horrible and arresting still, were the creature's eyes. Cruel and hateful and oh-so-very lucid.

"Stay away!" The Lucario's syn-fueled voice crashed across our minds, tearing through the otherworldly space like shattering glass. Somehow, the Shadow Pokémon was conscious enough for words, but somehow, we doubted any sort of negotiation was a possibility. His paws were already flashing, flares of energy blasting out like firehoses, seeking us as we fell from the air. Where Mayal fought like a wild beast, the Lucario clearly had some sort of training present in his movements.

It was halting, and uncertain, but evident all the same as they tracked our aerial dodges, trying to predict our motion, rather than just reacting to it. One of the blasts of syn struck us, and we went sprawling, landing hard and rolling twice to bleed our momentum. We flipped up off our tail, propelling ourselves backwards into one of the gore-coated pillars, our rear paws digging unnaturally into the ivory spire, before we launched off of it, charging forwards once more. Eleven seconds.

The Lucario braced to meet the partner's charge, his crossed arms catching our head-on assault. Our skull impacted his metallic forearms with a sound like a gong being rung, and power erupted between us as the impact crushed his arms back into some of the shards infesting his chest. Mayal tore forwards, but her aim was off, and she tore through an illusory Pikachu just a meter to our left, even as more doppelgangers appeared around us, presumably created by Ink.

Before she could recover, Alister arrived, already swinging. The Biasharp's bladed arms were glowing with some sort of boost, and his experience helped to at least mitigate the speed-advantage enjoyed by the other combatants. The Lucario tried to move to help Mayal, but we were in his way, and two quick jabs, followed by an uppercut that took him in the maw made the Fighting-type reevaluate his priorities. Fourteen seconds.

"Out of my way!" the Lucario's physical and mental scream washed over us, but both scattered against the sparks washing off our body. We ducked under a straight, leapt above a sweeping kick, and pushed off the air to land on the Lucario's shoulder. We reached out with both paws, grabbing hold of the strange growth coating the Fighting-type's chest, and immediately a cavalcade of voices assaulted our mind. The moaning from the unnatural pillars intensified, and intrusive whispers thundered in our ears.

Instinctive revulsion flowed through us, and out of reflex more than anything else, we wrenched ourselves backwards, flooding our tail with Steel-type energy and using it as a counterweight to pull the recovering Lucario into a flip that smashed them into the ground. We held onto them the whole way down, pouring electricity out of our cheek pouches and through our paws, trying to damage the unnatural lattice that'd buried itself into our opponent's chest. Eighteen seconds.

Syn burst off the Lucario, an unconstrained blast that knocked us away. We landed in a skidding slide that we immediately transitioned into a dodge, diving away from Alister's tumbling form. Mayal crashed down over us like a wave, and we barely spun and got our tail up in time to parry her brutal claws. The sickle-like blades clattered of our metal-infused appendage, and we took the opening to drop down on front paws, before pushing off of them to launch a drop kick at the savage Zoroark. Twenty-one seconds.

Mayal took the blow in the chest and staggered back, which gave Alister enough time to grab us and pull us out of the way of a glittering orange stave of pulsating, malign energy. The Lucario let out a huff, whirling their new weapon in hypnotic patterns as they followed the retreating Dark-type, who slung us towards a nearby bone pillar. We rebounded off of it, leaving scattered gore and a cracked ivory spire behind us. We came in fast, the air screaming around us as electricity exploded off our form.

Twenty-four seconds. The Lucario tried to stymie our assault with his bone staff, but we crashed through the construct, shattering it and sending the Fighting-type sprawling. The recoil hit us hard, but the Lucario was down for now. He was clearly struggling for breath on the chalky ground, his paws scrabbling to find purchase, even as his muscles failed to haul him upright. We knew what this was though. We'd talked to the trainer's best friend. Our foe wasn't going to stay down for long.

We fought through the pain in our throbbing skull, even though the impact had split our scalp open through our syn. The blood leaning around our eyes did nothing to stop us from sprinting forwards, tail aglow and ready to shatter the crystals even now infusing the downed Lucario with unnatural vitality. Twenty-six seconds. Mayal erupted from the shadows in front of us, a beam of darkness on her lips.

We were forced to abort our charge, whipping around and slicing through the incoming attack before it could reach us. For a brief instant, it looked like the opening we'd forced was going to close without our side making any forward progress. And then the illusion of inattention around Ink lifted as he raised both his paws above his head.

An ochre sphere of energy formed between his descending fists, the whirling orb rotating like a spun globe and screaming with barely-restrained force as the powerful Dark-type leveraged a move rather antithetical to his nature. The Focus Blast crashed down on the prone Lucario like an avalanche, shattering the majority of the crystalline lattice enshrouding his chest. The other, smaller crystals flecked across his form were similarly blown away, though a few stubborn remnants remained embedded in his body.

Twenty-seven seconds. And then, for all of Ink's efforts, the Lucario erupted anyway, the few shards still affixed to his body enough to power something analogous to a burst declare. Ink was sent sprawling, and he landed in a heap, before being swiftly swallowed by the shadows once more. Alister moved in to engage the resurgent Lucario, as Mayal lashed out against us with a flurry of claw strikes. We blocked one, two, three, four blows, but the fifth attack crept past our guard, knocking us prone.

We rolled with the hit, coming up on all four and arresting our opponent's follow-up charge with a blast of lightning. Thirty-one seconds. Fully one second passed our previous record for holding a synergy burst. The trainer's head ached. The partner's everything ached. There was no time to rest. Mayal plowed through our attack, taking it head-on, and scrabbling forwards anyways.

Another pustulant shard exploded under the pressure of our assault, but a half-dozen of its fellows glittered on, suffusing the Dark-type's blood-soaked fur with energy. She came at us with her maw wide open, and darkness suffused her jaws as she tried to grasp at the dodging partner with rending claws. The attack was telegraphed, easy to read. For all her nature as a trickster, there was no artifice in Mayal's movements, no feints or misdirection.

And for all that, it was still almost impossible to dodge her frenzied assault. She was getting faster, somehow. Energy soaking into her body, warped and twisted. The flurry of attacks, claws and bites and kicks and charges, came in an unending stream, and for all that we punished every other missed attack, retaliated in every obvious opening, our efforts went unrewarded, except for the shattering of another crystal. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Thirty-six seconds, and the trainer collapsed, her body barely caught by gentle arms. The partner used the last dregs of energy remaining to leap back, out of range of Mayal's unceasing pressure. There was still strength in her body, more yet to give, but without the extra power granted by a synergy burst, the result of the next engagement was in doubt. No, there was no doubt. We'd barely been holding our own, and Mayal was only getting stronger. If we got weaker as well, we'd have no chance.

"Alyssa, this isn't working, " Mr. Gima hissed at the trainer as Ink appeared next to them. The Zoroark raised his arms, and a squadron of illusory Pikachu appeared around Mayal, scattering off in all directions and drawing her attention away from the real partner.

"Just give– just give me a second," the trainer forced out through panting breaths, her lungs spasming as they struggled to draw in enough air.

"We can– we've got another one in us. Just need a bit to recover."

"We've broken a bunch of those crystals, but they're not slowing down," the Unovan man hissed, before shouting a quick order at Alister. The Dark-type groaned something in response, but repositioned to keep himself between the stalking Lucario and the two humans.

"Plus, I don't like the way that Lucario is eyeing us," Mr. Gima continued, "Mayal is pretty easily distracted, but that– thing will come after us the second he's not marked, and Alister can only stall him for so long." The shriek of metal scraping against metal punctuated the Unovan man's statement, as Alister barely managed to deflect a flurry of palm strikes.

"Then– just give us another half-minute. Ink can distract Mayal, and we'll take out the Lucario together," the trainer asserted, slowly finding the strength to haul herself into something resembling an upright posture.

"Thirty sec–" Mr. Gima bit off a curse.

"Fine, you'll get it. You two are– just get your breath in you." The trainer had already sat down on the salt-encrusted ground, legs crossed under her. There was power in her yet, she just needed a little time to catch her breath. Five seconds. Ten. The sounds of battle surrounded her, as Poké Balls cracked open and Mr. Gima's wounded partners took to the field to buy a few precious moments. Fifteen. The trainer's heart slowed, its frenetic pace evening out. The partner's still thundered twenty times a second.

Twenty seconds, screamed orders intermingled with roars of exertion or pain, twisting in and amongst the moaning voices still polluting the unearthly space and unnaturally loud in the partner's sensitive ears. Twenty-five. A hand landed on the trainer's shoulder. Nausea roiled in our stomachs and our heads pulsed as if someone were beating on them like a pair of drums. It'd have to be long enough. Energy flooded through our bond once more, the stone we both clenched aglow with energy.

The partner tore forwards in the instants before the connection widened fully, interposing our body between the Lucario and a prone Neirah. The Shadow Pokemon's bone club shattered as energy erupted off of us, the burst declare sending our malice-fueled opponent reeling. And once more, we descended on him like lightning. - Fione POV The darkness ahead remained impenetrable to my senses, both mundane and otherwise. It muffled my vision, and swallowed my voice.

Only the feeling of a familiar body nestled in my hair and an unfamiliar paw clasped in my hand kept me moored in any sense of reality. I wasn't sure how long we traversed the unearthly moors. It could have been hours, it could have been seconds, but our guide moved without hesitation, and the only way out at this point was forwards, so on we went. And on. And on. And on and on and on. Until, finally, there was something more than darkness.

Light, vibrant and true and, to my vision-starved eyes, entirely unmistakable. My best friend, sitting on the ground and blazing like the sun.

"North!" our guide's mental voice exploded, interrupting half of the ongoing battle for a breath moment. My mind fragmented into dozens of threads, each taking in one small aspect of the scene in the brief half-second of stillness. Pikachu was facing off against a Lucario, one coated in a malefic corona of shadows. A massive crystalline lattice was stuck fast to his chest, though fractures and cracks ran through it, and through the handful of other shadow synergy stones growing from his body.

Scythe's Zoroark was a few meters past that battle, waging a nonsense war against a panoply of unreal foes, interspersed with Mr. Gima's real partners, all of them bearing visible injuries. The man himself was crouched by Alyssa, one hand on her shoulder, body tensed as if ready to move, and his eyes aglow as he tracked the ongoing battles. As for Alyssa, she was aglow. Lit from within, as if lightning was caught in her veins, and seeking an outlet. Her partner was similarly alight, pouring off energy like a star.

The synergy burst looked all the more radiant for the shadow-choked environs, and Pikachu restarted the action first, my best friend no-doubt cognizant of the severe time-limit she was operating under. If we were closer to a gaia point like we'd been when fighting Klank… but now wasn't a time for ifs. I released my partners in an eruption of light as the city-security Lucario charged ahead, moving to intercept Pikachu's opponent.

"Mana, cover us, Knights, start buffing up, I want you full-strength before you get in there. Maushold, support Pikachu with a Helping Hand whenever she's about to land a big hit. Klang, give Grimsley's team some cover. Lock On into Charge Beam only, don't risk any friendly fire." My team sprang into action, hustling to follow my commands as I took off myself, sprinting the dozen-or-so meters I needed to arrive at my best friend's side.

Our arrival did not go unnoticed, North (apparently) was now fighting two versus one, as the Lucario Detective crashed into him with a glowing blue club shaped like a long bone. Mr. Gima turned briefly from the fight to take me in as I skidded to a stop by his side, before he turned back to look at the battles.

"Kid– Fe. You look as bad as you sounded over the horn… thanks for coming."

"No thanks to you," I growled, as I settled down in a crouch next to Alyssa, looking over her moving form closely for injuries or signs of harm.

"Egg on my face," the Unovan man replied, the chagrin visible in his voice for all his expression didn't change.

"Now, how do we free those two from these damn crystals?"

"It's not exactly a science," I replied as I watched the two Lucario trade blows.

"We need to break as many of them off as we can to weaken them, and then we either need to shatter the stones, or purify them."

"Shatter them?" the Dark-specialist's expression finally twisted.

"We've been hitting them with everything we have and we've only broken a handful, and little leftover bits are still stuck in their skin. Bits that I'd bet will regrow if we let up. How do we shatter them?" A familiar hum suffused my mind, an errant thread of thought helpfully furnishing an all-important memory.

"We use a gift," I replied, the familiar hum building in the back of my throat.

"Tell me, how good are your partners with sound-based attacks?" - Alyssa POV Distantly, some part of the trainer registered her best friend's arrival. Distantly, because we had very little focus left for anything that wasn't the battle. More and more was drawn from the trainer, funneled into the swirling vortex of erupting light surrounding our more agile body. We were on our third synergy burst, and the trainer's eyes no longer saw the light when they opened. But that mattered little.

Thoughts and concerns for the future would only, could only be considered once we won this fight. Just like all the ones before it. Our freedom, clawed from the uncaring world, one victory at a time. This was no different. Just one more challenger that we had to defeat, one more battle to win on our neverending road. Two roared as one, as an unfamiliar body joined the unceasing dance. This interloper shared a form with our foe, but not an intent.

Where the one we fought desired only destruction, our new ally stood instead as a pillar of peace. His movements shared none of the eager malice projected by the Shadow Pokémon, only a calm surety of purpose, and a certain, melancholy ache. The city-security Lucario, his badge identified him as such, barked at our opponent, his words and intent so bundled and twined in his syn that even the partner couldn't properly parse all of the meaning.

Hurt and questioning and sadness were present, but reading anything deeper would require time we didn't have. The Shadow Pokémon snarled in response, his words no more intelligible, but laced with enough hate that the vocalization felt like a physical thing, a curse born into the world on a blackened tongue. The newcomer recoiled, before barking again, and redoubling his assault. Here was an expert in the style that our opponent only had some small knowledge was.

He wielded his bone stave as an extension of his body, each movement perfectly economical, each strike aimed with preternatural precision. Only the raw power wielded by his opponent kept the city-security Pokémon from taking over the battle. His hits were sure and true, but lacked the impact to deliver true damage to the real opponents in this fight. That was where we came in. We dove in as an opening appeared between the fighters, our tail parting the air with an audible whoosh.

The attack impacted one the remaining crystal still budding out of the Shadow Pokémon's body, and it shattered under the assault, coming to pieces and spraying the environment with orange detritus. The fell Lucario snarled, but his attempt at retaliation was stopped by his fellow Fighting-type, the city-security officer redoubling his own assault as the aura of malaise surrounding our opponent weakened.

We fell into an uneasy rhythm, the two Lucario trading blows, and us jumping in to take advantage of our opponent's distraction. Another crystal broke, then a third. Soon the Shadow Pokémon was down to only the crystalline array suffusing his chest, and the lingering dregs of the other growths we'd broken. His energy flagged, but unfortunately, he wasn't the only one. For the third time in as many minutes, the all-encompassing power of a synergy burst fled our form.

We trembled, barely able to stay upright without the buoying power. One body did collapse to the unearthly dirt, chalky dust coating our front and side, as gentle hands rolled us into a recovery position. No time to worry about that, our unexpected ally was blasted back, as a fresh burst declare suffused the reeling Shadow Pokémon. It was weaker than what had come before, sputtering and wane, but the darkness erupted all the same, a seemingly limitless well of strength ripped from places unknown.

Our foe tensed, his entire body rippling under the waves of shadow, but before he could come sprinting towards us, or his fellow Fighting-type, a howl of pain caught his attention. He wheeled in place, turning to look at the other ongoing battle. We'd lost track of the other fight, eyes only on the battle in front of us, and in the interim, things had turned against Mayal. The Zoroark was barely standing, most of the remaining crystals on her body shorn down to little nubs.

A myriad of Pokémon surrounded her, an unearthly song erupting from their impromptu chorus.

The three tiny mauses, mouths askew and fur rippling, two steel gears, scraping against each other in a deadly dance, an unnatural construct of light and data, glitching in midair as a tinny song came from speakers unsuited for the task, one gleaming statue of metal, scything his arm blades together, a violet feline, jaws ripped wide in an unholy yowl, and loudest of all, an azure shoal, bellowing at a volume greater than the surf itself.

In between them all scurried a phalanx of little spheres, slamming into the staggering Zoroark, blasting away the few weakened crystals still stubbornly hanging to Mayal's crumpling form. Their attacks were brutal, yet precise, keeping the Dark-type from getting her legs under her while they completed their destructive work.

And who else could be conducting the entire symphony but my best friend, standing just behind the impromptu picket, her voice projecting dozens of words per second, packaged script of intent so dense and tight following it required instinct, more than true understanding. So focused was she, and those she directed, that none of them noticed the incoming danger before it was too late. The city-security Lucario tried to stop his Shadow counterpart, but the most recent burst declare had knocked him too far away.

We tore forwards in the killer's wake, sending bolts of lightning skittering forth, but he shrugged off the attacks, all his attention and focus on the other battle. And on the nearest, softest target. A scream of warning tore itself free from the trainer's throat, startling the Unovan man keeping watch over our unmoving form. That, at least, got our best friend's attention.

Fe turned, just in time to see the incoming Lucario, mere meters away from her now, a sharpened spike of citrine bone extended out in front of him like a lance. She made to move, but the Lucario crossed the distance in a heartbeat, his gleaming weapon pointed unerringly at her chest. A scream of horror ripped its way free from two mouths, along with a chorus of alarm and fear from the Pokémon surrounding Mayal, as they realized the danger Fe was in.

They tore into motion, but none of them could move fast enough to intervene in the bare moment before our best friend was pierced through, intent on their attacks as they'd been. Two illusory copies of the girl appeared on either side of her, but the syn-sensing Pokémon's aim remained unerring, as he crossed that last meter of empty space. A bloodcurdling cry filled the otherworldly space, as the Lucario skidded to a halt, his lethal stave pushed forwards in a textbook thrust.

Just a few centimeters short of its intended target. The implacable juggernaut who'd shrugged off so much was halted, his entire body radiating shock and surprise, all his matted fur standing on end and his syn-sensors splayed out in stupefaction. Because even he, with all his preternatural senses, hadn't been expecting the specter that leapt out of the shadows projected behind Fe's body, the light shedding off the partner's blitzing form providing the perfect avenue for the perfect surprise-strike.

The tiny, hovering Dreepy had both spotlight eyes splayed open, and their mouth was pulled wide and down, revealing a maw of razor teeth dripping with blood and viscera. A cheap illusion, barely worthy of the name when compared to the two Zoroark's on the field. The sort of trickery that held up to exactly zero scrutiny. Good only to shock, to surprise, to Astonish. For one, crucial instant, the Lucario flinched, and launched his attack just a moment too early.

And then we were there, a comet of light, crashing into the Shadow Pokémon from behind. And something in us swelled. A clarity of purpose. A certainty. A belief. We would be victorious. No matter what. Moments passed, seconds, as it built within us. All our wrath, all our determination, all that we were. We would win, and we would be free. And nothing would ever change that. We let the power loose, and the world shattered.

- Fe POV I completed my dive, leaping out of the way of the incoming Lucario just as Pikachu crashed into his back, sending him tumbling past me, and the cordon of Pokémon at my rear. The Fighting-type ragdolled through the air, before slamming to the ground in a heap next to the prone Zoroark, both crystal-encrusted Pokémon momentarily unmoving. I'd almost just died. Again. There was a ghost living in my shadow. One which could only have one possible source.

Alyssa and Pikachu had somehow found it in themselves to fuel another synergy burst. And all of that had to be relegated for later consideration, because we weren't done here yet, and none of us would be safe until we were." Don't stop!" I shouted, directing the chorus once more. The impossible medley arose once more, what had been a song for one expanded into an entire array, all bent towards the same end. Weakening the parasitic hold the shadow synergy stones had over their hosts.

The two Shadow Pokémon lay crumpled atop one another, and both shuddered and shook as the vibrations crashed through them. My knights struck in an unending deluge, targeting the vibrating crystals, shattering what few remained.

And still, and even still, power erupted around the two crumpled forms, a deluge of malice that blasted everyone back, the final, sputtering gouts of energy sending the entire symphony flying. The two Shadow Pokémon made to stagger upright, leaning against one another, bitter malaise coming off them in waves. And then there was light. A pillar, connecting ground and sky, bright enough to illuminate everything in the otherworldly space in stark relief. Thunder, called to earth the hammer of a wrathful legend.

The impact shattered the ground underneath our foes, and the shockwave shattered the nearest spires of bleached bone like matchsticks. The beam of light pulsed for one second, two, unending and unwavering. The shadows retreated, blasted away by the awesome display, a circle of faint, open sky visible through the distortions blown in the otherworldly space. Three seconds, and I was sure this sight would be seared into my retinas forever.

Four, and I realized that I couldn't hear anything, only a dull roaring that sounded oddly quiet. Five, and I thought that maybe the attack would never, could never end. But nothing is forever, and finally, after mere seconds and an eternity, the electrical apocalypse trailed off, revealing a smoking crater, and two struggling, scrabbling forms. And still our work wasn't complete, because I knew well from experience that the darkness would not release their hosts so easily.

"Everyone, now! Grab the crystals! Together!" My command started a stampede, and we all crashed into the downed Shadow Pokémon, Poképiling atop them in a heap, hands and paws and claws and blades and shields and more outstretched, each and everyone one grasping onto a shard of crystallized malice. And down we went, tumbling into the depths, as the darkness rushed to meet us.